Celtic Corner - April 2015

CELTIC CORNER

1916-2016

March is always for St. Patrick. April is for the Rising. On Easter Sunday in Newark, a group of men & women commemorate the 1916 Easter Rebellion with a march from Military Park to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Frank & Kathie Darcy are honored to carry the banner in the march. A mass is celebrated in Irish Traditions and the Proclamation is read.

This year we celebrate 99 years. Next year we will have the 100 year celebration of a free 26 county Ireland. We know the heroes, we know the story. We would have no Ireland, let’s not forget that. Woodbridge Irish Remember.

TIME LINE LIST

1916- The rebel leader Patrick Pearse stands under the portico of Dublin’s General Post Office to announce the birth of the Irish Republic.

1916-Eamon deValera comes to prominence as one of the republican leaders in the Easter Rising.

1916-Patrick Pearse and his fellow Irish rebel James Connolly are executed by firing squad.

1919-The Sinn Fein members elected to Westminster establish their own parliament in Dublin, The Dail Eireann (Assembly of Ireland),soon declared illegal by Britain.

1919-The armed supporters of Sinn Fein become the IRA, or Irish Republican Army, in Ireland’s war of independence.

1919-Michael Collins springs deValera from Lincoln gaol, with the help of a duplicate key.

1920-The Government of Ireland Act provides for separate devolved parliaments in southern Ireland and the six counties of Ulster.

1920-The brutal behavior of the British police reinforcements, the Black and Tans, aggravates the violence in Ireland.

1920-The Ira and the British security forces clash during a violent ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Dublin.

1921-The republican party Sinn Fein is unopposed in southern Ireland’s first general election and so wins every available seat in the Dail.

1921-The Sinn Fein members of southern Ireland’s new parliament assemble on their own, under the name Dail Eireann(Assembly of Ireland).

1921-James Craig (later Lord Craigavon) begins a 19 year term as prime minister of the new province of Northern Ireland.

1921-Envoys sent to London by deValera agree independence for southern Ireland as the Irish Free State, with Dominion status.

1921-The Anglo-Irish Treaty, agreed in London, ends the war between the British army and the IRA.

1921-The British parliament ratifies the Anglo-Irish treaty, but deValera repudiates it and resigns as president of the Dail.

1922-In elections to the Dail the pro-treaty faction of Collins and Griffith defeats the opposition, led by deValera.

1922-Bitter war breaks out between faction of the IRA supporting and opposing the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

1922-The Irish Free State takes stringent measures against rebel terrorism, making possession even of a pistol a capital offense.

1922-With the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the 26 counties of southern Ireland formally become the Irish Free State.

1922-William Thomas Cosgrove becomes the first prime minister of the Irish Free State.

1923-De Valera and the IRA lay down their arms, bringing to an end the Irish Civil War.

1923-De Valera and his followers do well in elections to the Dail but decline to take their seats.

1926-Eamon De Valera’s faction, Fianna Fail (Warriors of Ireland), enters mainstream Irish life as a political party.

1927-De Valera and his party, the Fianna Fail, finally take their seats in the Dail.

1931-The Irish government classifies the Irish Republican Army as an illegal organization.

1932-Fianna Fail wins enough seats in the Irish Free State’s election for Eamon deValera to form a government.

1932-De Valera withholds farmers’ annuities from Britain, provoking British tariffs and a trade war.

1933-Fine Gael is the name given to a new political party in Ireland, formed by the merger of several smaller groups.

1937-De Valera introduces a new constitution, changing the name of the Irish Free State to Eire (Gaelic for Ireland).

1937-De Valera’s new constitution for Eire lays claim to the six counties of northern Ireland.

1940-Lord Craigavon (previously James Craig) dies in office after nineteen years as Northern Ireland’s prime minister.

1943-Basil Brooke begins an unbroken 20 year period in office as Unionist prime minister of Northern Ireland.

1949-Eire is renamed the republic of Ireland and withdraws from the Commonwealth, severing the last link with the British crown.

1949-The British government declares that Northern Ireland will remain British unless the parliament in Stormont decides otherwise.

1957-DeValera takes stringent measures against the IRA and Sinn Fein, detaining activists in an internment camp.

1959-On the retirement of deValera, Sean Lemass succeeds him as leader of Fianna Fail and prime minister of Ireland.

1963-Terence O’Neill succeeds Basil Brooke (Lord Brookeborough) as Northern Ireland’s prime minister.

1965-Terence O’Neil and Sean Lemass, prime ministers of Northern Ireland and Ireland, have two unprecedented meetings.

1968-The first civil rights march in Northern Ireland, in Derry, is halted by the police with batons and water cannon.

1969-The Provisional IRA reintroduces the fight for justice in Northern Ireland after Protestants attack a civil rights march.

1970-The Social Democratic and Labour Party(SDLP) is formed in northern Ireland as a coalition of Catholic nationalist and civil rights campaigners.

1971-Ian Paisley and others in Northern Ireland form the Democratic Unionist Party, as the intransigent wing of Ulster Unionism.

1971-Gerry Adams is imprisoned for suspected IRA links but is released for lack of evidence.

1972-British paratroops open fire on a civil rights march in Derry killing thirteen in what becomes known as Bloody Sunday.

1981-The first of 10 hunger strikers Bobby Sands dies.

1984-Republican activist Gerry Adams is elected president of Sinn Fein.

1990-Mary Robinson is elected president of the republic of Ireland, the first woman to hold the post.

1993-UK and Irish premiers John Major and Albert Reynolds sign the Downing Street Declaration, a strategy for peace in Northern Ireland.

1994-The IRA declares a cease fire in Northern Ireland, a gesture followed a month later by Protestant paramilitaries.

1998-A proposed referendum on Northern Irish issues is accepted by all the relevant political parties in what becomes known as the Good Friday Agreement.

1998-In the referendum to endorse the Good Friday Agreement, the terms are accepted by majorities in both the republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

1998-The Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble becomes First Minister of the newly convened Northern Ireland Assembly.

2003-Ian Paisley’s hard line Democratic Unionist Party wins in elections to the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly.

2005-The Provisional IRA announces a formal end to armed conflict and orders units to dump all their weapons.

2007-Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly bring the same result as in 2003, with extremist rivals DUP and Sinn Fein the dominant parties.

2007-Long term enemies Ian Paisley (DUP) and Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) agree to share power in reconvened Northern Ireland Assembly.

2007-Devolved government returns to Northern Ireland with Ian Paisley as first minister and Martin McGuinness as his deputy.

2008-Peter Robinson, elected unopposed as leader of the DUP succeeds Ian Paisley as First Minister of Northern Ireland.

2015-The British government would not allow the Irish to have a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Scotland.

          Sadly enough, there is still no justice, no freedom, just hatred, prejudice, false imprisonment and a lot of violence. Just imagine your Celtic language is not legal to speak, your Gaelic games are frowned upon, your religious freedom is always in question. Ireland without question is one country, no partition.

“Ireland unfree shall never be at peace”

Padric Pearse

Caisc shona duit

Happy Easter

          
Frank Darcy